Black & White Film 35mm (12 images)

Description
Typically, photographs of the male nude published in the 1980s and earlier were figure studies kept chaste and de-sexualized. While most of the artists shooting male nudes at the time were gay men – their work was designed to keep that fact in the closet.

1988, the year I got my first 35mm SLR, was also the year my lover died of AIDS. Most of the photos from the classic B+W gallery were...more »

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Description
Typically, photographs of the male nude published in the 1980s and earlier were figure studies kept chaste and de-sexualized. While most of the artists shooting male nudes at the time were gay men – their work was designed to keep that fact in the closet.

1988, the year I got my first 35mm SLR, was also the year my lover died of AIDS. Most of the photos from the classic B+W gallery were originally made for the book OUT OF THE STUDIO, intended as both a memorial of our loss and a ray of hope for all of us then suffering the trauma of the epidemic.

The AIDS crisis brought the homophobia of our culture into high relief and exposed the fatal force of that hatred when internalized. I believed that we needed a better more honest depiction of ourselves as frankly gay and affectionally connected. We could at least honor ourselves.

I set out to make the pictures for OUT OF THE STUDIO as a challenge to the culture to see us as I saw us – as beautiful, vibrant and loving as we were. I had many gay friends as handsome as any male model who were glad to be represented as themselves without the ruses and artifices of fashion photography. I believed that art could address the problem. We created the world as we wished it to be by exposing the intimate best of ourselves. These pictures were made to challenge fear with beauty.

The images in this gallery come from my first seven books made before the digital age.« less